


Inked Photograph

by StoneWitch



Series: Requests [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Blindness, Night Terrors, Requested, levi needs all the hugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-16 21:41:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17553716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StoneWitch/pseuds/StoneWitch
Summary: A challenge to make Levi go blind slowly over timeRequested from my tumblr. (Clo-Caillea)





	Inked Photograph

His first clue went entirely unnoticed, like a speck of dust on a camera lense; creating the barest of impurities, just a minuscule smudge that bent light in the image.

It lay nestled so small that it wasn’t even an irritant, he never got the chance to disregard it as nothing because it hadn’t even been noticed in the first place.

 ~~~

He finally noticed the smudge in the picture on a slow Thursday morning when he was cleaning his office.

The bookshelves were pristine, the carpet void of the tiniest granule of dirt, even the chair legs glistened in the sunlight through his window.

Levi’s hands were pruning with the water and cleaning chemicals soaked into them as he scrubbed furiously at a stubborn spot on his desk that just would not release the wood. By then, the cleaner was so strong over that spot that he was absently certain it would smell like pine trees for days.

Swift raps to the door snapped his thoughts back to life. His back was aching across his hunched shoulders in a way he couldn’t remember feeling except for his returns from long expeditions.  _How long have I been fighting with this shit stain?_  He wondered as he barked a rather volatile, “what?!” at the door.

He didn’t lift his eyes, instead wetting the cloth inside the water next to him which had gone cold a long time ago. The door slowly crept open and a cadet stepped in.

“Sir, squad leader Hanji asked me to bring this to you. You missed dinner.”

He stopped scrubbing. His mouth dropped open and he finally looked up.

The cadet had brought in a tray of food and was standing there shuffling from foot to nervous foot, unsure of what to do next.

They were smudged too. Their face almost fit perfectly behind the cloud of impurity in his line of sight. Bent light around the edges, like a photograph with dust on the lense.

He dropped the rag into the water.

Ice dripped through his veins.

~~~

He tried.

He really did.

Levi tried his hardest to ignore it.

He’d learned two things rather quickly:

The first was that the titans were too big for the imperfection to hinder his killing capabilities, allowing him a reprieve from having to worry.

The second was that anchoring was an entirely different story.

One time. Only once. He’d missed. But it was one moment that forced him to reconsider his thoughts on the obstruction in his most vital sense.

He’d struck a tree at full speed because one of the claws fell to empty space when he’d already released the other to follow a pull which didn’t come.

But Levi was adaptable.

That was part of what made him the soldier that he was.

And so, he adapted.

He learned how to avoid anchoring in that spot. To use his peripherals or the open edges that were still clear.

That was also how he came to realize that the smudge was growing.

Glaring white sparks of ice cold terror crept through his veins as he woke day by day to a little more bent light and clouds. The photograph was being eaten away and the imperfection was starving.

~~~

“Erwin, I have a stupid question,” Levi declared as he barged into his leader’s office.

This was the dreaded beginning.

His chest was crumpling in on itself with a mixture of anger and shame and this annoying, yapping dog named Confusion.

The blonde lifted one thick eyebrow and set down his pen, motioning for Levi to come closer and take a seat.

The smaller man walked up to the desk with brisk steps, placing his hands against it and leaning over, his mouth a hard frown.

“What color are my eyes?”

To his surprise, Erwin was barely phased by the question. He leaned up and observed.

“Grey blue as always,” he stated, sitting back and furrowing his brows when Levi visibly tensed. “Why?”

Levi unceremoniously slumped down into one of the chairs behind him, his gaze unfocused as he turned it to observe the papers across the desk.

“I have shit news,” he growled.

“Oh?”

The words were lodged inside his throat and releasing them would make this nightmare real.

He could already imagine the pathetic look Erwin would give him, and it pissed him off to think that’s what he’s going to be forced to keep as his final memory before this shit dunked him into darkness.

He opened his mouth to begin, nonetheless. “I…” a heavy sigh released and he muttered, “shit.”

He’d never backed down from a damn thing, but this was hard. He swallowed and tried once more, “there’s something wrong with my sight.”

That wasn’t so bad. Right?

Erwin remained quiet, drawing Levi’s gaze back to his serious face. Apparently, that was all the commander wanted before speaking.

“Terribly wrong, or fixable and irritating wrong?” he prompted slowly.

Levi’s frown deepened. “I don’t know that it can be fixed.”

“Have you spoken with Hanji about this?”

“Tch. Shitty glasses isn’t going to fix my sight. If she was  _that_  smart, she’d have fixed her own by now.”

Erwin hummed, leaning forward and clasping his hands on the desk. “You couldn’t wear glasses like her then?”

Levi had to look away as he replied, “no. My vision isn’t just going fuzzy. I -” he stopped, raising his hand and touching his closed eyelids with his fingertips. “-I have some kind of obstruction. And it’s growing. And apparently you can’t see it.”

Abrupt silence echoed loud enough to pound in Levi’s eardrums. He slowly opened his eyes, narrowing them to their bored, half lidded glance and turned back to Erwin.

The commander was frowning hard, his baby blues racing with numbers and plans crowded in behind them.

Finally, he made the deduction of where their conversation was leading, “are you telling me that you’re unfit for duty?”

Levi couldn’t say it. He turned his head, glaring at the window beside his leader.

Erwin let out an almost defeated sigh.

They remained there in that tense silence for a long time, both men coming to an understanding that couldn’t be voice just yet. Humanity’s Strongest was going blind. Their hope would die with the loss of his sight, no matter who stepped up to take that mantel next. And there was absolutely nothing that they could do to stop it.

If he’d been a different man, he might have broken down. Might have wept. Or perhaps gotten angry. That sounded more likely. A different man would have lashed out. Would have snapped the chairs into pieces, flipped the desk over, punched some holes in the walls.

All Levi did, though, was lower his head until he stared at his clouded lap and he released the smallest of sounds from the back of his throat.

He’d say that it was a growl. Something animalistic slipping out at the helplessness of it all.

But if he were honest, he’d admit that it sounded closer to a whimper.

~~~

He began to have nightmares during the few hours he stole for slumber. It seemed the more the clouds grew, the louder the storm inside him thundered in response, and he was beginning to wonder if he’d go utterly mad beneath the grey and black.

Spilled ink would creep across his skin during the night, tickling it, making him itch, making him claw at his arms and chest, leaving red gashes beneath his nails that were still stinging when he would finally wake.

A monster closing in with hooked claws, plucking his eyes from the sockets and jamming a smooth, curved spike down his throat when he’d scream.

He would thrash violently at the demon nestled on top of him, battling inside his unmoving flesh as it continued to slumber beneath the blackness creeping in.

And every time he woke, he took a little bit of that ink into the clouds in his vision.

It was dripping in little by little like each night was an eye dropper with poison slinking into the greying clouds that drew the electricity trapped in his bones up into his head.

He was half certain the storm itself would kill him.

The thunder would snap his bones.

The lightning would fry his nervous system from the inside out.

He was going to explode.

And those clouds were getting blacker and blacker, blotting out the worried faces of his comrades and tugging at his chest with its violent indifference.

~~~

He would never admit the nights when he wept.

In the crushing silence of his isolation, he was crumbling under the storm and the ink and he couldn’t take it. He couldn't take the weakness. The shame. The fact that everyone watched him so  _fucking_  closely to see how he was going to struggle. Fuck them.

Maybe it was rage that made the fluid leak.

Maybe if he told himself it was his anger, he’d eventually believe it and stop feeling like a goddamn shit stain for letting it happen.

The salt and liquid was like gasoline down his cheeks, his wretched sobs the sparks lighting them up.

Lightning cracked across his chest and another sound escaped his mouth and he hated it.

He hated it with such a ferocity that he was tempted to tear at his own eyes and end this waiting game. His self control was only slightly stronger than the rage and he was able to refrain by instead directing his attention to the contents of his desk, throwing it across the room and as the thunder crashed through him, he let out a bone shattering roar that probably woke the entire fucking castle.

He was so ready for the black to just  _take over already_  and let this suffering come to it’s final resting place.

Let him fucking move on already.

Let him fucking rest.

Oh god, he was so tired.

~~~

He eased open his eyes on the dreaded morn.

When the night terrors had been scored from his mind like a bladed whip tearing through flesh, pouring out blood and his worst fears into reality. The black greeted him with an endless maw that opened up to swallow him. It was unforgiving, this cold stillness that didn’t shift from eyes closed to open. The eternal ink that was deep as an abyss and he lay there for a long moment blinking furiously, as if he could deny the truth. As if the rapid movement of eyelids could wipe it away.

He didn’t snap though.

He reminded himself that this was the morning he’d been waiting for ever since he sat in Erwin’s office that day. This was the morning when nothing was left. The one when the wait was finally over. When the photograph no longer even had a smudge, it just  **wasn’t** anymore.

In fact, he surprised himself with how quiet he was inside. The lightning was no more than a soft whisper. The thunder an even quieter pur.

He just lay there under the weight of nothingness, letting it press his body further into the mattress and he swore he almost heard the creak of his bones softly protesting.

But he didn’t snap. No, he’d waited for this. He was ready for this.

After some time, he resigned to the darkness. He lay there not even knowing whether his lids were up or down, clasping his hands and resting them on his stomach.

It was strangely relieving to lay there like that. Part of him wanted to say that this weight, this darkness, this curse that crept up on him, maybe it was a promise.  

And he caught himself wondering, just for a brief, fleeting second if anyone by that point would even notice if he just… stopped?


End file.
